Enders swap, Update 11/29/19 Options

[Box]

Congrats!!

[Zake]

it seemed like i was reading a magazine article, but WAY better! the swap looks great and I'm glad you got it done. you have been talking about doing this for a long time now.

[richee3]

Congrats, Luke! It looks great! I can't wait to see it in person.

[bloodMoney]

Looks great Luke!

Are you going to bring it down to Joliet?

[Edser]

Good job! Have fun!

[Keiri]

This thread delivers. Congratulations and very well-done Luke!

What a meticulous and intelligent build; the way that motor sounds in the start-up video just brings a smile to my face.

[Smaay]

why didnt you mate the transmission up to the engine before you put it in? you just made extra work for you

[enderswift]

HELL YEAH!! When is she (or he) going to go to a MidWest Meet?

I'm gonna have to sit down and sift through the meet thread. Joliet isn't all that far from me so why not?!

Congrats!!

Thanks!

it seemed like i was reading a magazine article, but WAY better! the swap looks great and I'm glad you got it done. you have been talking about doing this for a long time now.

Thanks bud, I spent the past few years looking over some awesome threads on here so I wanted to put in some effort and make something that would be a good read

Congrats, Luke! It looks great! I can't wait to see it in person.

Thanks Dan. Hurry up and buy a clip already!

Looks great Luke!

Are you going to bring it down to Joliet?

Think so. My clutch is finally breaking in so there really isn't anything stopping me now

Good job! Have fun!

Thanks bud

This thread delivers. Congratulations and very well-done Luke!

What a meticulous and intelligent build; the way that motor sounds in the start-up video just brings a smile to my face.

Thanks mam, and thanks a bunch guys. I can say that it was all well worth it. The car pulls hard, and shifting from second into third on full boost is my new favorite thing to do

why didnt you mate the transmission up to the engine before you put it in? you just made extra work for you

because I'm a newbie to engine swaps haha, and I really didn't want to break anything trying to stuff the whole thing at once. I completely agree that it would have been faster to install them together.

[navseal345]

Dibs on first ride!!

[Tigawoods]

great job!

[Stambo]

yay another 3s! now for me to start another project soon

[ricochet1490]

SON! - nicely done. thing sounds MEAN!!

[bloodMoney]

Just Sayin'

[Ted95]

looks great man congrats!

[enderswift]

Just Sayin'

way ahead of ya man. I was lookin at that link the night of the meet. Luckily I found out the issue! The hidden bolt connecting the passenger-mount insulator to the engine bracket was loose

looks great man congrats!

Thanks man

[richee3]

The hidden bolt connecting the passenger-mount insulator to the engine bracket was loose

I recently had that same issue. Difference is, my other two bolts were broken/missing as well. Whoops. So now that you've been driving it for a while, any chance of an updated review? Brigette and I may or may not be changing something about our car next Spring.

[enderswift]

The hidden bolt connecting the passenger-mount insulator to the engine bracket was loose

I recently had that same issue. Difference is, my other two bolts were broken/missing as well. Whoops. So now that you've been driving it for a while, any chance of an updated review? Brigette and I may or may not be changing something about our car next Spring.

Good to know I'm not the only one struggling with post-swap adventures. And I like the sound of that change As for an update, here it is:


Hello 6gc,

it's been a decent amount of time since I've posted a real update; so I'm sure some people assumed I had indeed crashed into a median at 17psi, or blown the engine up....right before crashing into a median. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for them, neither of those things happened. Instead I've been keeping myself busy tracking down and correcting every last creak, rattle, and leak possible before I considered the swap complete. A certain 8 hour licensing exam has been keeping me busy too, but I never want to think about that ever again. Which is why today I want to focus on what has happened since the swap and what it's like to daily drive a 3s.

As mentioned before, the swap went very smoothly with no show stopping disasters or oversights. But that doesn't mean there still wasn't a lot of work to be done. As you can imagine I had a number of unforeseeable obstacles to overcome before the car would be a dead-reliable fire beast. The biggest of which was my clutch. Immediately after the swap the new pressure plate from the fx300 kit started destroying master cylinder after master cylinder, rendering the car undrivable to the point where I almost got stranded at work. It wasn't until I bit the bullet and sourced an OEM master that I could actually shift into gear consistently. But then I still had to contend with a clutch that had 1mm of travel before engagement. After lots of trial and error (mostly error) a custom adjustable slave cylinder push rod solved that issue. Finally I had to figure out why the clutch was shuddering so much from a stop. I assumed that something was installed incorrectly, or the flywheel was machined with the wrong step, but both of those things meant I would have to remove the transmission... Screw that, I got annoyed and just thrashed the crap out of the clutch around my neighborhood for a few days. Problem solved, just needed a good break in

Beyond that, the majority of my issues were limited to hunting for the source of bumping noises, and tracking various exhaust/transmission/powersteering leaks. My turbo also had an annoying tendency to loosen its bolts every few days. so I had to go through the process of installing nord-loc washers without taking anything apart, which was interesting . I'd like to say that fixing these things was fun, but it really wasn't. A lot of this stuff required hours of work, especially things like replacing a torn rear engine mount, or taking apart the passenger suspension just to replace an axle seal. That seal was particularly annoying because I could have easily replaced it during the swap (I even had it on hand ready to go). Thankfully I seem to have caught up to it all because the car has been phenomenal lately. Just start it up in the morning and go.

So while contending with all of these things, I also had to break the motor in properly. I never understood the reasoning behind a 'soft' break in, and no one could ever justify it to me in terms of what was physically taking place inside the motor. So I took the more aggressive approach where the point is to load the rings without overheating them. This meant lots of short, low boost power pulls. Within 50 miles I knew I was 99% done with the break in. However I still drove the car conservatively until I hit 300 miles, at which point I ran a compression test:


That was a good day. The FSM states that compression is supposed to be 164 psi I was almost afraid to look at the gauge the first time haha.

All together I did 3 oil changes in the first 1000 miles. At 100, 500, and 1000. The last one had me switching from 10w-30 dyno to synthetic and there have been zero problems in the few thousand miles since. Obligatory disclaimer: your results may vary.

Long-winded paragraphs aside, here are some photos of the celi as it stands:


It's interesting to think about how much this car has gone through over the years, yet it looks so unassuming. I kind of like that.


At long last, the bay sits as it always should have.


The ceramic coating is holding up pretty well and doing a great job keeping the bay temps in check. I've seen some turbocharged cars get so hot that you couldn't hold the hood prop for more than a second or two!


I really like the gauges, and I recommend prosport to anyone looking for a set. These have been working flawlessly and look great, particularly the opening sweep. They are currently wired to run off of the stereo's power source so they can be shut down when needed.

And now a small video of the engine idling away. I have a few videos of power pulls, but I'm saving those for a future update:

Nothing exciting about the motor idling in my driveway, but I thought it might be interesting to post anyway.

As for daily driving a 3s, well the only word that comes to mind is smooth. The twin entry turbo gives just a moment of pause before unleashing pure thrust. My open-diff s54 means I have to fight the wheel to keep the car on the road, and as the revs build, so does the acceleration. That's one thing I love about this engine, it NEVER STOPS PULLING. I've caught myself dipping into redline because I was waiting on the power to taper off like it did in the 5s (which was previously my que to shift). 1st and 2nd gear are useless from low speeds; leaving me spinning and wheel hopping all the way up to third, which is the magic gear. Everything just conspires to launch the car forward in in that gear, with fourth being just as fun. 5th is jail time, so I don't mess around there too much. However it's nice to consider 5th as a highway passing gear now

It feels great to be at a point where I can just enjoy the car. Frankly I've been getting a little burned out lately. That's why I don't plan to make any huge changes until next spring. In the mean time I'm going to slowly work on welding up my exhaust cut out and preparing an LSD transmission. Ultimately working into a meth injection kit and boost controller. Speaking of the exhaust cut out, here's what I have waiting in the wings:



should be fun

This post has been edited by enderswift: Nov 5, 2012 - 8:23 PM

[navseal345]

Lovin' it! So jelly right now.

[zero07]

Very nice build.. congrats

[Stambo]

I got ahold of a kaaz lsd for the mr2 trans if your interested. I got it out of a donor mr2 trans for my all trac project.